Friday, December 19, 2014

Review of Golden Son by Pierce Brown




Golden Son by Pierce Brown

So I just finished reading Golden Son. What can I say about this read… it was dark, gritty, impactful, heartbreaking, gorydamn amazing. (Yeah, I think I like that last one the best.)  
Golden Son is the second installment of the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown. If you haven’t read Red Rising, go do it.  In this book we leave the surface of Mars and the brutal training play yard of the Golden children and head intergalactic. There’s a touch a space opera, other-worldly technological advances, new adult angst, power struggles, slaughter, violence and death-the list goes on and on and on. We watch Darrow lose his focus and find it again, lose his friends and find them again, lose his family and find them again, but best of all we watch Darrow lose himself and find himself again.
In a booklovers universe that’s filled with YA giants like The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Ender’s Game etc, Brown’s titles are a step in another direction. This author doesn’t need comparison to others in his genre because he does something that these other books don’t, he stabs you in the gut with a slingBlade made of fire, rips you to the sternum, lances your heart and then does it all over again without apology, without the assistance of a Carver to sew your soul back up. His writing is unique and consuming, his characters over the top but still captivating. The world he’s created… tremendous. There are Reds, Golds, Yellows, Pinks, factions residing over factions in an intricately designed world cross-stitched with Greek mythology. And don’t blink while you’re reading this, you might miss the deception, the thrill, the passion, and it’s all going to slap in you in the face at the end, leaving you wondering what the hell just happened, because it’s all pure awesomeness. 



Monday, December 8, 2014

Sharing a Sparrow Man review


#dosomethingwithyourlife



Friday, December 5, 2014

The Genome by Sergei Lukyanenko



The Genome by Sergei Lukyanenko
2/5 stars
I don’t even know what to say about this read. So I’ll try. This book is divided into 3 sections. The first section, I could not put down. The reader is immediately thrown into world of space and genetically altered beings and we are introduced to Alex Rominov a space captain who happens upon a young girl and helps her.
The second section is heavily laden with thoughts of love and Alex’s supposed inability to love since he is a pilot he is only able to love his ship. This part was where the flip switched.  At 52% I found myself putting the book down a lot and very easily. The entire story changed into something reminiscent of a fourteen year old boy’s dreams of romance and sex. Alex turns into a man-whore with the women on the ship, the descriptions of him connecting to the ship sound like erotica, and then the love-square develops with Alex, Kim, the boy trapped in a gel-crystal, and the female doctor on the ship. Ugh.
The third part of the book turns into a whodoneit, complete with a Dr. Watson and Mr. Homes investigating a murder on the ship. Not my cup of tea.
The author does give a warning note before the start of the book about cynical and immoral things. The Genome is well written, the fictional aspects are greatly executed, but I still feel like this book could have been something amazing besides a tongue-in-cheek mockery. Maybe that’s what the author was trying to accomplish, maybe he wanted this work to really stand out from the pack, but I feel like it could have been executed differently.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

This is me


Thursday, October 16, 2014

The Healer by Allison Butler


ARC provided by the publisher

The cover: I am so sick of rippling abs on romance novels, this cover is a welcome stray from the norm. I kinda love it ;)

The book:
One word comes to mind as I power off my Kindle and that is: Refreshing.
The Healer is a historical romance that's sweet and angsty. The pacing is perfect, the characters are well developed, and the setting was a welcome change. Not once did I find myself skimming as I read. The RN in me really enjoyed Lynelle's passion as a healer.

If you're looking for a bit of romance with historical charm, pick this book up.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Reluctant Prince by Dani-Lyn Alexander


ARC received from the publisher.







Let's start with the cover. I Like it. I feel like the cover is a little dark for this book, and something seems a bit off. But I do like it, it's just not my favorite.

The Book:
This was a great read. I was hooked from the start with the action and intrigue. Reluctant Prince reminded me of a very toned down version of Elizabeth Norton's Eternal Guardian's series (which I loved). The romance was sweet but not overbearing.There was plenty of action so boredom was not an issue at all. And, there were dragons! Loved that tidbit in the book.

4/5 stars

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Review of Undertow Book #1 in the UNDERTOW Series by K.R. Conway


Received an ARC from Netgalley

Undertow was a pretty good read. The beginning was slow and it was the typical new girl in a new town dealing with a new high school drama, and I was a bit bored with it. Around 47% the book really picked up and sucked me in. The plot was exciting but the overuse of adverbs and lack of descriptiveness (ex: beautiful bed, delicious food, suddenly, immediately, etc) became a bit annoying.
I was reminded a bit of Twilight mixed with something new and refreshing.
Overall a good read. But this is the first in a series so expect having many unanswered questions.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

What you missed at the Bookies event on facebook last night.

The author Takeover on the Bookies Facebook page last night was pretty awesome. A ton of people showed up, here's a tiny bit of the shenanigans:

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Be there or be square...


Thursday, September 25, 2014

Book Review: The Martian by Andy Weir


The Martian by  Andy Weir
This is the best book I've read all year. Hands down. It's about a man who gets left behind during a mission to mars and has to survive on his own for over a year. If you can get past the first few sections where the MC is calculating potato calories, endlessly, it's so worth it. I'm wishing I had bough a copy of this instead of borrowed it from the library. 

I feel like my BS in Biochem was rejuvenated. This geek girl loved the hard science banter mixed with humor. When I finished this book I wanted to go get my MS and work for NASA. An inspiring read. Just go read it.

Friday, September 19, 2014

Book Review: Unborn by Amber Lynn Natusch



I was super pumped to receive an ARC of Unborn!

The cover: LOVE!

The blurb:

Born into mystery. Shackled to darkness…

Khara has spent centuries discovering everything about the Underworld―except her place in it. But when she’s ripped from her home, solving the riddle of her origins becomes more important than ever. With evil stalking her through the dark alleys of Detroit, she finds salvation from an unlikely source: a group of immortal warriors sworn to protect the city. Khara needs their help to unravel the tangled secrets of who and what she is—secrets many seem willing to kill for. But time is running out, and the closer she gets to the truth, the closer necessity binds her to an arrogant fallen angel.

Can their shaky alliance withstand that which threatens her, or will her soul fall victim to the unholy forces that hunt her―those that seek the Unborn?

From the author of the bestselling Caged series comes a pulse-pounding new romantic urban fantasy series.

--

My thoughts:
I was so excited for this read. I wanted my pulse to pound, but, sadly, it stayed at its normal sluggish rate throughout this entire book. And the romance? Where the hell was it? Oz starts out as an interesting love interest but by the end it’s all toast. Too much talking, barely any action. The spots that had me hooked were few and far between.
The mix of greek mythology and angels did not meld well in this book. The world building was just not up to par.Great ideas, poor execution.
I marked my kindle at 46% with the note of, “finally gets interesting.” But by then it was too late, I was already detached. Khara’s character was hard to connect to; she lacked emotion.
There was a lot of awkward dialog, one minute everyone is talking like they are from another era and then there’s some slang thrown. It would be funny, if Khara’s dumbfounded reaction to it wasn’t so odd. She states that she’s been around for hundreds of years, she reads books, and although she detests television, she had one for a while, also she spends six months out of the year on earth hiding in the woods somewhere. So tell me, how does this character not understand simple slang terms and other languages? Khara has had hundreds of years to learn Greek! Does not make sense.
This book is not for everyone, but it may still be for you. Try it out. Sadly, I don’t think I’ll be reading the rest of the series. This was the biggest disappointing read of the year for me :(

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Book Review: The 100



This was a fast read. Typical YA, strong on the romance aspect. I loved the Science Fiction/Dystopian storyline of everyone living in space and waiting for the earth to recover from the apocalypse. Every character has a love interest. I liked the alternating POVs but I feel like it ended very suddenly. The cliffhanger wasn't bad, but it was slightly annoying. I will more than likely read the next book in the series.





Wednesday, September 17, 2014

#amreading


Monday, September 15, 2014

Sunday, August 31, 2014

A Review: Of Bone and Thunder




ARC received from NetGalley



3/5 stars

First thing, let’s talk about the cover. Beautiful, amazing, intriguing. The cover drew me to this book. I love it. Pure fantasy.

Now let’s talk about the book.  I have a hard time connecting with books that have an epic war at the forefront of the storyline without knowing some background information. This is where I would have appreciated a LOTR worthy prologue.  The literary world says prologues are dead, but I think this book deserves one, especially since Of Bone and thunder is hailed as a LOTR-esque read. From a LOTR reader, what do I see that this book has in common with LOTR? Dwarves and Dragons and the hint of an epic battle. Except, I don’t care much for the battle, since, as a reader, I have not been introduced to the danger of the Slyt’s, as I have been to the evil of Sauron. I can understand why the soldiers didn’t understand their mission, because neither did I.

Moving on.
Of Bone and Thunder is told from multiple points of view. We see through the eyes of the enlisted men at the forefront of the battlefield, a man on the ground who just might be a secret weapon in winning this war, and the eye-in-the-sky dragon riders. There is war, deception, drug use, the mistrust of new technologies,  the role of women on the battlefield, and they are all artfully intertwined.

What did I love? The scenery and the mixing of magic, dragons, weaponry that deserve a fantasy novel of their own. Our most captivating characters, Jawn, a trained Thaum (think mind magician with electricity) and trained military officer in the Kingdom’s army, as well as Vorly and Breeze with their dragons are the plot points that kept me reading. Not only were these characters the most captivating, but the scenes were well written and imaginative. I think I did fly on a dragon while reading this, and I did that crazy mind-meld thing that Breeze and Vorly did using the crystals. But what we were given wasn’t enough for me. Deep in my heart, I wanted more dragons, More  magic of the Thaum, More Jawn, more Vorly and Breeze and Carduus. We are only given hints at the strongest characters and most interesting storylines, and then they are heavily coated in jungle sweat and frontline banter and combat. I really wanted to connect with the front line military men, but since (yes, I know I’m beating a dead horse here) I have no way to connect with this war, they were simply a lot of static in the storyline. That being said, Of Bone and Thunder is still a great read.  
Does Evans combine the best of fantasy and military fiction? Yes. Is it for me? Some of it is. I think my problem is that I just prefer more fantasy and less military fiction
If you’re more into military fiction than you are into fantasy, this is a good read for you. If you’re fond of fantasy, but not a fan of military fiction, consider moving on.